I have had much success using Google AdSense, but I am very careful when choosing which sites I want to display ads on. Below you will find 5 reasons why you should not use AdSense on certain websites.

1. Google AdSense Can Be Bad For Business

Did you know that you could be severely harming your business by choosing to display Google AdSense on your website? I know, you’ve probably read countless articles and e-books claiming you can become a millionaire through AdSense. I am not here to say this can’t be done, but at what cost to your business?

I’m quite confident in saying that Google AdSense can be bad for your business.

I’ll set up a little scenario to help you understand how Google Ads can be bad. Let’s say you own John’s Used Cars, a used car business. And let’s say that you have one of the nicest looking used car lots in town. Your car lot is set up better than the rest of the ones in town.

Now picture all your cars lined up nicely on the lot, all waiting to be sold. Except there is one thing different about your car lot. Next to each car you are selling is a billboard, or a sign with an advertisement on it if you will. Each advertising sign that is next to the cars you are selling is telling your potential customer to check out another used car lot down the street. Sounds a bit silly doesn’t it? Here you are displaying your cars for sale, surrounded by signs advertising sales at other used car lots down the block.

Now apply this scenario to your online business. If you have a nice looking website created for your business, full of high quality content, why do you want your content surrounded by advertising links to other relevant websites? You are literally telling your customers to go somewhere else and shop. And what’s in it for you? A few pennies here and there when the visitor to your website clicks a Google AdSense ad.

What you just did is sent your customer away from your site, a really big mistake. This is bad for your business, because you set yourself up to lose potentials customers, sales, and leads. All the time you have spent trying to drive traffic to your site goes down the drain.

2. Google AdSense Unprofessional?

I’m willing to say that if you have Google AdSense ads plastered across your site, your site falls into the unprofessional category. I know many will argue about this, but in my view it’s true. People who use AdSense will go hog wild and begin placing ads carelessly throughout their website. This is usually done because others say earning money through your ads is all about placement. This is true, however your nice looking website has now become a huge bulletin board of advertisements.

Google AdSense does allow you to customize the look of the ads you place on your website, but only to a certain extent. Let’s go back to the used car lot business that I mentioned a few moments ago. Let’s say there are two sales people working at this used car lot business. Both sales people are dressed very professional, however one is wearing 25 buttons advertising other businesses. Which sales person would you be more comfortable with? Without being too judgmental or bias, it’s pretty safe to say that you’d rather be approached by the sales person who is dressed professionally, without all the buttons.

3. Google AdSense Creates a Distraction to Your Visitors

How many times have you visited a site about a certain topic, only to be bombarded by ads for another topic? It happens all the time. If you have a website about video games, why have a bunch of advertisements for wedding dresses? There is usually some sense of control, but there are times when the ads just don’t match up to the content. I think this is a HUGE problem, and creates an unnecessary distraction to your site’s visitors.

It’s crucial that you grab the attention of your visitors within the first few seconds, otherwise you just may lose a customer. If you focus on creating a web site with less distractions, you will more than likely have better results in the long run.

4. Google AdSense Can Cost You Advertising Money

Using Google AdSense can end up costing you more than you think. This applies to many web site owners who use Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising to drive traffic to their site. PPC can be a highly effective form of advertising, but you just might be throwing everything out the window when you use PPC advertising and AdSense at the same time. Imagine you are spending a specific dollar amount on PPC advertising each day, yet the majority of your traffic that comes through PPC ends up clicking on the AdSense links on your site. Where’s the benefit here?

You just spent advertising money to bring a visitor to your site and immediately send them somewhere else. You didn’t capture any leads, make any sales, and just drove the customer away from your business. NOT good! Yes, you can earn money from the AdSense ads that are being clicked, but they aren’t worth nearly the same amount value as a good lead you might have captured during this process.

5. Google AdSense Can Cause Lack of Focus

This one is important to you as a web site owner. It’s very easy to lose focus while creating a decent quality web site. Many will lose focus on creating good content, and will constantly be looking for ways to increase revenue through their AdSense ads.

This is fine if you have a website with a sole purpose of earning money through AdSense ads alone, but if you have a website for your business, you’ll begin to lose focus on creating content that can increase the revenue for your business. And the whole point of creating a website for your business is to build your business, build a customer database, and earn money.

So there you have it, some of my reasons to think twice before adding Google AdSense to your business site. I am not here to tell you that you should never use Google AdSense to earn money. You just should be cautious when it comes to using this method to make money.

Did you know that simple images on your site can drive traffic to your website for free? Best yet, if used correctly, the traffic that comes to your site will be targeted traffic, the best traffic you can receive. I’ll quickly share a few tips on how to experience an increase in traffic. These are all extremely quick and easy to do, and best of all it doesn’t cost you a single penny.

Naming Your Images

Focus on the titles that you assign to each image throughout all of the content on your website. Naming your images so that they are SEO friendly is an important step during this whole process. Let’s say you have a website that’s focused on recipes, better yet, leftover turkey recipes. When listing your recipes, you may choose to display a photograph of the finished recipe, such as a photo of a turkey pot pie. Instead of displaying your image with an obscure title such as “tpp01.jpg”, name your image “turkey-pot-pie-recipe.jpg”. Using hyphens to separate each word in the title of your image is a better option than an underscore.

Use Alt Tags

Always remember to add alt tags to your images when you are including them on your website. Your alt tags should be relevant to the image that you are posting. So let’s go back to the turkey pot pie example. If you wish to display an image of a turkey pot pie created from a recipe, label your image with an alt tag such as “Turkey Pot Pie Recipe”. The alt tags show up on search engine result pages rather than the titles of the image.

Choose Your Images Wisely

If you haven’t experimented around with image searches such as Google Image Search, now is the time to do so. Spend some time searching through the site before adding a specific image. I’m going to dive back into the whole turkey pot pie example once again. Let’s say you use Google Image Search to search using the phrase turkey pot pie. Click on the image beneath to get a better look at what’s being shown. You’ll see that searching for this phrase will return 808,000 results.

Now let’s try something a little bit more specific. Try a Google Image Search using the phrase double crusted turkey pot pie. Click on the image below to see that this search will return 85,100 results. This opens up a window of opportunity for you. If you choose to be a bit more specific and include an image on your site of a double crusted turkey pot pie rather than just a turkey pot pie, you’ll have less competition when it comes to having your images indexed and displayed on Google.

Relevant Text With Images

Remember to include relevant text and keywords near the images you are posting. This can help the search engines index your site and rank your images. There are all sorts of ways you can include images within the content of your website, however you’ll have to experiment with what works best so that you can achieve the best results.

Making Your Images Unique

Nothing is better than including your own unique images within the content of your website. But of course there are times when you’ll include some images or photos that are available for free across the internet. When you use free images, be sure and resize them and make them unique to your content. Having a new and fresh resized version of the image can help separate the image from all the rest across the web.

I’m certain that if you implement these tips that you’ll find an increase of traffic to your site. Always remember to monitor your site’s stats to see what is being found and what isn’t. This will give you the ability to make necessary changes when it comes time.